


Porch Wings

by Schwoozie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, One Shot, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 06:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwoozie/pseuds/Schwoozie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her suicide attempt, Beth finds Daryl on the porch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Porch Wings

**Author's Note:**

> _Most everything means nothing_  
>  _Except some things_  
>  _That mean everything_  
>  \- Railroad Wings, Patty Griffin

He's distracted enough that it takes him several minutes to realize he is no longer alone on the porch. He covers his jump with a cough, glancing sidelong at the girl curled up on the porch swing.

“Sorry,” she says, not looking at him. “Couldn't breathe in there.”

Daryl grunts, turning back towards the farm, taking a drag from his smoke. “Your porch.”

They sit and stand in silence for a time, listening to the rhythmic chirrup of crickets, a muted conversation between Lori and Patricia drifting from the kitchen window. Daryl isn't used to nights like this—so teeth-sickeningly sweet, the peace of it. Like the girl at his side; a damn sugarplum—one look would rot your gums out.

She doesn't look sweet, though, or at peace, as he observes her out of the corner of his eye. She just looks sad.

“You can ask, you know,” she says, much louder than he expects.

He coughs. “Ask what?”

“Why I did it.”

He looks at her full on now. It's the first time he's seen her dressed since the barn—jeans so worn they're almost white, a sweet blue blouse that sets off her eyes. Her hair, usually shining, golden, is a matted mess, pulled away from her face into a listless ponytail. Daryl wonders what Maggie does in the girl's room all day, she isn't taking care of her hair.

He realizes she's still waiting for him to say something. He grunts, again.

“Think everything's screwed,” he says, sucking on his cigarette until the end glows red in the night.

He feels her eyes on him. It prickles his spine, this feeling like she's painting a target on his neck.

“Isn't it?”

He looks at her again. Their eyes don't meet, but it's a close thing, trained on noses and the corner of a mouth. Daryl swallows, remembers suddenly the old nightmares of his mama's face in flames.

He takes another drag.

“Probably.”

Her eyes are on his face. “You think I should try again.”

He shrugs.

“Why don't you?” she asks.

“Too much of a coward, I guess.”

He didn't mean to say that, but it slips out like a weasel between fence posts, and it makes him pause, glance at her again. She's considering him, measuring him with her true-blue eyes, knees tucked daintily under her chin.

“I ain't a pussy.”

“I know.”

“I ain't.”

“You looked for that little girl. I _know_.”

Daryl shrugs uncomfortably.

“Weren't nothin'.”

“It's something,” she says.

There's the silence of the night again, pressing. Daryl sucks at the cigarette, grunts when the dwindling filter burns his fingers. He drops it to his feet, stamps it out, glares at her as she prepares to comment on his desecration of her porch.

But she doesn't comment. She's crying. Slow, silent tears, their streaks down her face the only trace as her shoulders don't move. She's looking out at the farm, towards the woods, a sight she's likely seen every night of her life—but he's aware of how a familiar sight can tilt, warp. He's seen it on his own in the mirror.

He shifts on his feet as the silence between them stretches; his fingers twitch to light another cigarette, but he doesn't, yet. He thinks she's building up to say something.

But she isn't. She's waiting for him to speak.

“Ain't worth it,” he says. “Tryin'.”

Her gaze turns on him. He twitches.

“Tryin' to die? Or to live?”

He shoves his hands into his pockets, shifting.

“Askin' the wrong man.”

“I ain't. I'm asking you.”

“Well, don't.” Daryl clenches his teeth. “Shouldn't be out here anyway. Ain't safe.”

“It happened in her own bed,” she says. “She scratched him. Shawn. My brother. Ain't safe anywhere.”

“We'll keep you safe.”

His cheeks burn when her eyes turn on him, luminous blue.

“Rick. He's a good man. He'll protect you.”

“And what about you, Daryl Dixon?”

He wants to ask how she knows his name, but he doesn't. He remembers hers, wrapped in the panic of the house as she gazed, unseeing. Beth. A little girl's name.

But it doesn't feel like he's standing with a little girl; especially not in the prickling of his skin as she rises and walks over to join him by the railing, looking out. Her sister's voice has joined those inside, asking where she is, and she seems to flee from it as her shoulder brushes his. Like even with that faint touch she's beginning some long process of crawling inside his skin. His body shudders to take a step aside—but he doesn't. She's quiet and small and he sways back into her, pressed for a moment shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, linked like one being in the creeping dark.

He jerks away when the screen door bangs open behind them, glancing guiltily into the furious eyes of the elder Greene.

“Beth, where the hell were you? I told you to stay in the house.”

“It's only the porch, Maggie.”

Daryl can feel Maggie's eyes on him, judging and suspicious—he takes another step away from Beth, slumps his shoulders like he would passing flinching mamas on the street. It mitigates his threat somewhat. He tries.

He looks from Maggie back to her sister when the long line of her arm presses again into his, surprisingly strong for her paleness. She looks at him, and he looks at the ground, avoiding her sister's eyes.

“Come inside, Bethy.”

“I'm with Daryl, Maggie. I'm safe.”

“Come inside.”

Her father's voice has joined those in the kitchen, low and strained. He sees the weight of the man's sorrow fall on the girl's shoulders—it only presses her into him more.

“Beth.”

She looks at him. He likes it too much, this feeling, her slightness. It makes something deep in his lungs expand; his heart, for the first time in years, starts beating again.

“Better listen to your sister.”

He expects her to look at him like it's a betrayal, but she doesn't—just presses into him once more, like a promise. It feels as intimate as a kiss on the cheek.

“G'night, Daryl.”

She slumps back towards her sister's arms, growing smaller as she goes—a fae wisp, by the time she's reached the door. There's a shadow of herself she leaves behind in the corner of her eye as it melts into his, the moment before she passes the threshold. He almost follows, before he remembers the mud on his boots, who he is. The people he can't save.

The porch is too lonely, now, even for a man attuned to loneliness, and with a huff he swings his bow onto his shoulder, stalks down the steps towards his camp. The walk is long. When he reaches it, he stands in its midst—taking in the hanging hides, the ears still strung like tinsel at the entryway of his tent. The crickets are louder, here, like a drum-line as he looks into the woods—considers, for a time, the look on her face if he were to disappear before she wakes, melted like a suicide into the night.

_Tryin' to die? Or to live?_

_We'll keep you safe._

Daryl toes off his boots, drops his bow; collapses into his bedding with a grunt and a cough, as the ash settles in his lungs. He stares at the distant tarp of the tent top. The light from the house shines faintly through the flap. From the corner of his eye, it appears almost as two spots of blue.

 _We'll keep you safe_.

He turns over, closes his eyes. He'll deal with it, the “I” he almost said, in the morning.

 


End file.
